Picture Books to Teach About REsidential Schools Teaching students about the history of Canadian Residential Schools is necessary but can lead to some very heavy conversations. I have found the best way to do this is through the use of picture books. 14 Picture Books It can be difficult to know which books are appropriate…
Growth Mindset Lessons As soon as I read After the Fall by Dan Santat I knew that I wanted to use it in my classroom. Besides the amazing illustrations, it has an incredible growth mindset message. I have tried many different behaviour management and self-regulation methods in my classroom over the years. I have seen…
Are you looking for new read Alouds for your Grade 3 or 4 Classroom? Whether it is on Instagram, Facebook, or in the school, I am always hearing the question “What book should I read to my class next?” I decided I would let you know which read alouds my 3rd and 4th grade students…
For years I struggled to organize my listening to reading materials. I never remembered to change out the books. Books and cd players were getting wrecked. Students had to listen to the same books over and over again because I didn’t have many books. It took a few years of struggle and many organizational tries…
I have read a lot of research articles about the importance of teaching students the ins and outs of syllables and I could bore you with all the technical mumbo jumbo, but I won’t. I will let you know the highlights of my research (and 14 years of teaching) and do so in easy to…
To start Reading off this year we are focusing on learning the Reading Power strategies.If you haven’t heard about Reading Power by Adrienne Gear (Note: All book links are aff. links) it is a must for anyone teaching reading. We have started by learning about how to make connections to what is being read. The…
Well it finally feels like we are in the swing of things at school. Everything is behind because of our late start so it is weird that we only have a few CAFE strategies done. Here is an update on our most recent activities. We had a Seusstastic time with our Tune in to…
Yay another Bright Ideas Blog Hop. I love them greatly !! I have gotten so many great ideas from them each time. For this month I thought I would share with you all how I motivate my students to track while they are reading. During my guided reading groups I felt like a broken record…
This week we started looking at story elements in hopes that soon my students will be able to write their own story with well developed story elements. I decided to start with teaching them setting. The first day I introduce setting with this anchor chart. As I was going through the anchor chart, I went…
I am going to be on holidays for 2 weeks.!!!!! Yay. It has been a long time. Before I leave I thought I would share with you all my students’ favourite read aloud book from this year. It is called The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Andrews. Yup the same Julie Andrews…
I cannot imagine what teaching would have been like before the internet came about. Searching through books, filing cabinets, and colleagues treasures to find that perfect activity or worksheet. Now it is so easy to find many (sometimes too many) activities, worksheets, and games for ANY topic in school. I decided that I would give…
